'A panoramic overview of housing construction in Europe: More ownership, less renting, more houses, fewer apartments.'

Within the European Union (EU), there are significant differences in how we live in terms of the size and type of housing, its quality, and whether ownership or renting predominates. The evolution of sale and rental prices also differs significantly between countries. We analyze the housing situation in the EU based on data from the European statistical office Eurostat.

How have house purchase and rental prices evolved?

Are there more homeowners or renters? In the European Union (EU), 70% of the population live in their own homes, while the remaining 30% live in rented accommodation at the end of 2019. The data in this interactive Eurostat report shows annual figures up to this year and therefore does not reflect''the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, which affected the whole continent in all aspects in 2020. Spain has an ownership rate of 76.2%, but far from Romanians, Hungarians or Slovaks. These and many other data can be found in the report.

More than two-thirds of the EU population own their own homes.

The percentage of the population living in owned or rented accommodation varies considerably between Member States. In the EU, 69.8% of the population live in their own home, while 30.2% live in rented accommodation. But where are the most owner-occupiers? Romania (95.8% of the population owns a home), followed by Hungary (91.7%) and Slovakia (91%) or Lithuania (90.3%).

Ownership predominates in all Member States.

Only in Germany is renting approaching''in a different type of housing).

Housing prices rose by 19% in the EU from 2010 to 2019.

With regard to house prices, there has been an upward trend since 2013, with particularly important increases from 2015 to 2019. In total, prices increased by 19% from 2010 to 2019. In 23 Member States, prices increased, while only three decreased (excluding Greece). The largest increases were seen in Estonia (96%), Hungary (82%), Latvia (75%), Luxembourg and Austria (both at 65%), while decreases were recorded in Italy (-17%), Spain (-7%) and Cyprus (-4%).

Rent payments rose by 13%

From 2010 to 2019, there was an increase in rents in the EU, with an average of 13% over the whole period. There was an increase in 25 Member States, only two saw a decrease. The most''big increases were in Estonia (156%), Lithuania (101%) and Ireland (63%), while decreases were seen in Greece (-25%) and Cyprus (-7%). In Spain, rents have risen by an average of 2.7% over the years and 3.2% since 2015.

The EU has an average of 1.6 rooms for every person.

The size of housing can be measured by the average number of rooms per person: the EU had an average of 1.6 rooms per person in 2019. Among Member States, Malta had the highest number (2.2 rooms per person), followed by Belgium and Ireland (both 2.1 rooms). At the other end of the scale are Croatia, Poland and Romania, each with an average of 1.1 rooms per person. Portugal has an average of 1.9 rooms per person.

Costs per''housing

The burden rate is higher in cities.

The highest rates of housing costs in urban areas were in Greece (40.7%), Denmark (21.1%) and Germany (16.2%), while in rural areas these rates were in Greece (28.3%), Bulgaria (18.5%) and Germany (12.4%). In this case, Spain is below the EU average, with 10.4% of the population in cities with high burden rates and 4.6% in''rural areas.

A fifth of disposable income is spent on housing. 20% of household disposable income was spent on housing costs in the EU in 2019. This figure varies between Member States, with the highest figures in Greece (38.9%), Denmark (27.1%), Germany (25.9%) and Bulgaria (24.8%). In Spain, the rate is 17.1%.

If we consider people with affordable incomes below 60% of the national average income who can be considered at risk of poverty, the share of housing costs in disposable income rose to an average of 39.3% in the EU and 36.2% in Spain. On the other hand, for those with affordable incomes above 60% of the average income, the percentage was 16.3%. In Spain, the figure is''12.2%.

The number of families in arrears on loans, rent and utility bills has decreased. Deferred payments on loans, rent or utility bills are another indicator that housing costs can be very high. Although house prices and rents rose between 2010 and 2019, the percentage of households with late mortgage, rent or utility payments fell in the EU from 12.4 percent in 2010 to 8.2 percent in 2019. Percentages fell in all Member States except Greece, Denmark and Finland. Greece (41.4% of households), Bulgaria (29.3%) and Cyprus (17.6%) had the highest rates in 2019, while the lowest rates were in the Czech Republic (2.8%), Germany (3.7%) and the Netherlands (4.0%). Spain corresponds to the EU average and''closed 2019 at 8.1%, after reaching 12.5% in 2014.

Housing quality

Housing quality can be measured in a variety of ways. One of them is whether a person lives in an overcrowded house. In 2019, 17.2% of the EU population lived in such conditions. The highest overcrowding rates were in Romania (45.8%), Latvia (42.2%) and Bulgaria (41.1%), while the lowest were in Cyprus (2.2%), Ireland (3.2%) and Malta (3.7%). In Spain, the rate is 5.9%, increasing compared to previous years but remaining below the 6.6% level recorded in 2011.

The opposite of an overcrowded house is an underutilized house, which means it is considered too big for the needs of the family living in it, as noted by Eurostat. In the EU in 2019, a third''population (33%) lived in underutilized homes, a figure virtually unchanged since 2010. Last year, Malta (72.6%), Cyprus (70.5%) and Ireland (69.6%) had the highest proportions of underutilized homes in 2019, while Romania (7.7%), Latvia (9.6%) and Greece (10.7%) had the lowest. Spain exceeds the European average, with 55.4% of the population living in underutilized homes by the end of 2019.